Pulling the plug

I don't have to tell you...  There are some days where just getting out of bed takes every fiber of your being.  Even still, a lot of those fibers fight every step.  It's because, buried deep in those gelatinous melons of ours, evolution has buried thousands - perhaps even MILLIONS - of fight-or-flight synapses whose main objective is SURVIVAL.  Survival of self (both mental and physical), survival of the species, etc., etc.

In 21st Century America, pulling the plug isn't as scary as it used to be.  So why don't we do it more often?  Probably because we've grown accustomed to the road we're already on.  Even though the highway is crumbling beneath our feet, we're comfortable taking this route because we know it so well.

I have an uncle who "pulled the plug" in the grandest way...  A born artist and lover of wildlife, he'd been worn down by the years, chewed up and spit out by life several times.  Married, divorced, success, failure, finally ending up a recluse with a house full of sick and dying exotic birds, living on nothing more than cigarettes and coffee.  Eventually, it got harder for him to get out of bed every morning.  Then, one day, he decided he wasn't going to get out of bed ever again.  He put a .38 in his mouth  - and he pulled the plug.

Now, since we know so little about what (if anything) is on the other side of this life, it's hard to know if he actually had the right idea...

Some philosophies will tell you that his end was a new, better beginning for those who knew and loved him.

Others will tell you he ascended to the next plane to begin a new life's journey.

Still others say that, by taking the life given to him by some Higher Being, his soul has been damned, cast into a pit of fire and brimstone where his Earthly pain will forever pale in comparison.

Still haven't figured out where I am on this...

While I have been prone to the lull of comfort, my underlying instinct is to fight.  To use every day to its fullest (just wish humans didn't have to SLEEP!).  Maybe the best way to apply the "Pulling the Plug" philosophy to life is to see life as a sort of switchboard, constantly shifting our plugs until we connect to what talks to us.

Then again, this is the 21st Century - there are fewer and fewer plugs these days.  Perhaps life is actually  the ultimate "IF/THEN" statement....